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Knock It Off
Knock It Off'' '''is the sixth episode in the fourth season of The Powerpuff Girls. Summary The Professor's old college roommate, Dick Hardly, comes for a visit, and as he gets a first glance at the girls, he comes up with an idea to make more of them and sell them as security systems to make money. Plot Part 1 The Professor gets a call from his old friend, Dick Hardly, who tells him that he's coming for a visit. The Professor thinks of the times that he and Dick had together at the University they attended (where Dick secretly cheated on his work and slacked off when he wasn't looking). Dick soon arrives, and gets a tour of the household. Just when Dick gets a first glance at the girls and discusses a way to make money off of them, the Professor gets suspicious and asks Dick to leave. Now feeling betrayed, Dick thinks of a way to get revenge and get rich on his own. Later that day, the girls are about to come home from school when Dick's car pulled up in the drive way, and he offers them a ride home. While riding, he thinks that not having more Powerpuff Girls wouldn't save the world, and asks the girls what they are made of. The girls quickly answer: "Sugar, spice, and everything nice, and an accidental dose of Chemical X." Now at the household, he asks them for a flask of Chemical X, and they zip to the Professor's lab and back, giving him the flask. Now eager, he rushes into an abandoned evil factory, which he now owns, and uses the ingredients the girls told him earlier to make his own creation—The Powerpuff Girls with Chemical X-treme (which are actually knock-offs of the originals). Part 2 The next day, he shows off his creations to the New York city public. Sometime later, the creations rush a giant alligator monster (who bares a striking resemblance to Wally Gator) to safety while on its way to work. This footage is publicly broadcast, and the Utonium family is watching. The Professor acts a little suspicious at the real girls, thinking that they went to New York, and asks them when they went. The girls lie to him, saying that they went earlier today. In bed, they feel really bad about lying to him, but think it will all turn out good. During the following days, Dick's factory started expanding, and he was making more knock-off girls all over the world: Japan, France, India, Germany, just everywhere. However, there were some knock-offs that he rejected, and they stayed at his factory for repairs. Some of the rejects are so disfigured, they end up as horrible, strange looking mutants. The Professor is starting to act more and more suspicious. The girls trust in Dick quickly fade when they see an infomercial that starred him, advertising "The Powerpuff Girls with Chemical Xtreme." Now knowing that Dick lied to them, the girls fly to his factory, confront him, and ask for the Chemical X they gave him, back. But rather than give it back to them, he psychotically swallows it whole (flask and all), and the effects of the Chemical X he swallowed turns him into a huge radioactive monster. The girls fight him, but they are no match for him, and he knocks them unconscious. Meanwhile, the Professor, whose suspicions lead him to thinking Dick was behind all of this, drives all the way to the factory. Noticing the fight inside, he rushes inside, but arrives too late, as Dick has almost extracted all of the girls' Chemical X out of them, using a machine he invented. He begs Dick to stop, as he is destroying them, but Dick asks all the rejects to take him away. While they do so, the Professor, anguished, expresses his strong and deep fatherly love towards the real girls. This sparks the reject girls minds into knowing that Dick never gave them love, and the rejects turn against him, cling themselves to him, and sacrifice themselves to seemingly destroy him in an explosion. However, a few of the rejects that survive release the girls, now passed out and completely drained of their Chemical X, and they ask the Professor to take the girls and get out before it's too late. He does so, leaving Dick behind, and, now far away from the exploding factory, is grief-stricken over the loss of the girls. However, his love quickly revives them, and the Professor, now happy, tells the girls, ''"Old Dick may have gotten the formula right, but the one ingredient he forgot, was '''LOVE." As the girls and the Professor leave, Dick Hardly screams one last time before the factory is completely destroyed and the narrarator says "Guess like the love you take is equal to the love you make." Trivia *The title is a play on the word "knock-off", which means a cheaper and poorly-constructed version of something, such as what Dick was doing with the Powerpuff Girls. *In airing order, this is the last episode to use the Hanna-Barbera ending logo before William Hanna's death in 2001. *Although this episode was produced in 2001, this is the last episode to use traditional hand-colored cel-animation and the last one to use the template for the January 1999 version of the 1998-2001 animated episode outro. As future episodes of this series would exclusively use digital ink-and-paint and computerized cels, this episode was meant as a way for the series to say "Farewell" to hand-colored production cels and traditional cel animation after four years. *After this episode finished production, Rough Draft produced their final TV series to be produced with cel animation, Robot Jones, produced in 2002 and 2003. By the end of 2003, Rough Draft Animation Studio management decided that audiences wanted only television programs produced using digital ink-and-paint and closed down their traditional cel animation department. The cel animation desks and cels from episodes were removed and sold off and the animation-specific rostrum cameras along with an episode outro production cel of the girls (in smaller size and in their normal poses) created exclusively for this episode was dismantled and scrapped. The reused episode outro production cels (complete with the November 1998, January 1999, and April 2000 star explosion cels and the November 1998 and January 1999 cels of the girls in their normal poses (in usual large sizes and in normal poses) were then reused for color-corrected versions of 1998-2001 episodes that were produced using computers and cel animation at an American not-for-profit animation studio between late 2003 and early 2006. *This episode is also the last one to use the February 2001 variant of the 1998-2001 3D star explosion and the January 1999 variant of the 1998-2001 golden star shower. *Also, in the animated outro for this episode, when the girls appear, they are zoomed out further than usual. *This is the fourth episode to have a character die in the show, which is Dick. (The first being The Rowdyruff Boys in the synonymous episode of the same name, the second being the Broccolids in Beat Your Greens, and the third being Bunny in Twisted Sister). *The directions to Townsville that Professor Utonium gives to Dick in the opening refer to actual freeways in the city of Los Angeles. If we applied the Professor's description to real life, Townsville would be located in Pasadena, which is where the 210 (nearly) junctions with the Harbor Freeway (aka Highway 110), roughly 15 miles east of the 101. *This was the first episode to credit Bubbles' voice actor as Tara Strong. *This was the only episode that someone destroys the Powerpuff Girls by taking their Chemical X life energy, but are brought back to life thanks to the deep fatherly love of the Professor. *This is the third time the girls die, the first was in The Rowdyruff Boys, the second was in Mojo Jonesin'. In the first and third times, they are revived by the power of love. The second time, they are revived by some friends, who used their last bit of Chemical X, which they had previously received by a disguised Mojo Jojo, to do so. *When the rejects turn on Dick, a buck-toothed Bubbles says "Only a master of evil, Dick", a reference to the line "Only a master of evil, Darth" during the confrontation between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader on the Death Star in Star Wars. *The robots seen remorsefully looking at the scenery when the Powerpuff Girls Xtreme saved Japan resemble that of (from left to right) Mazinger Z, Ultraman and Getter Robo *It is possible that Townsville is in California because according to the license plate on Dick's car, it is from California and the license plate also says the car was made in June 2001. It also says PROF-DIK on the license plate. *It is hinted that this episode was produced in June 2001, seeing as the Professor's license plate was labeled with the year 2001. *National Public Radio (NPR) is referenced in this episode. * The villain in India named Raja Jaja is a human and Indian version of super-villain Mojo Jojo. * The Narrator's last line in this episode, the love you take is equal to the love you make, is referring to the song "The End" by the Beatles. Goofs * When this episode first aired on Cartoon Network, the episode incorrectly had a 2000 copyright date at the end. Later reruns corrected this to 2001. * It's unclear how the Girls found Dick's hideout. Category:Episodes Category:Season 4 Category:Episodes focusing on Professor Utonium Category:Episodes storyboarded by Charlie Bean Category:Episodes directed by Robert Alvarez Category:Two-Part Episodes